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JIM CROW:

HIS BIRTH, MIRTH and DEARTH of WORTH

(Jim Crow is buried, but he is not dead. Here is the long-obscure origin of Jim Crow and his descendants. David S. Reynolds, in the following extract from his book, “Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson,” lays out a succinct review of how popular entertainment played into the formulation of our national attitudes surrounding race. It is the basis of much of the mythology and pathology that has buffeted this society up to the present day.)

Like melodrama, minstrel shows, humorous performances in black-face, had sensational appeal, though of a different sort. Whereas melodramas developed an adventurous plot, minstrel shows were free-form comedy in which action and dialogue came spontaneously from the shifting relationships between performers and their audiences. Minstrel shows have been called the only genuinely indigenous form of American drama. They amused 19^th century Americans, while reflecting their attitudes toward race relations. Although White performers in black-face had appeared since the 18^th century, it was not until after the War of 1812 that the dialect and habits of American Blacks were consistently mimicked onstage.

In 1822, the British actor Charles Matthews attended an all-Black play in New York at the African Theater, and was struck when someone in the audience demanded that the “Hamlet” of the evening stop reciting Shakespeare and sing, instead, a popular song, “Possum up a Gum Tree.” Matthews incorporated this song into his own act, “Trip; to America.”

By the end of 1820s, a number of White actors had begun to smear their faces with burnt cork, don curly black wigs and

ragged clothes and give acts  of purportedly, “Negro” dialect.

One performer, Charles Dartmouth Rice, in 1828, saw on the street an old Black man who had a high shoulder, a twisted, arthritic leg and a shuffling walk. Imitating the man, Rice gave his first black-face performance as, “Jim Crow.” Contorting his body and dancing with a strange hop, as he sang,

Turn about and wheel about

And do jis’ so.

Ev’ry time I turn about,

I jump Jim Crow.

Within a few years, Rice was internationally famous as, “Jim aCrow.